


A Quiet Rebellion

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 06:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for my dear Bettiebloodshed, who requested Bard's daughter Sigrid and Fili together. </p><p>Fili doesn't remember meeting her, but she remembers him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Quiet Rebellion

If fate were kinder, they never would have stood before each other on a high dais in a great hall. Him in heavy robes trimmed with furs, her in silken dress and both with crowns sat heavy on their heads. They were meant to be children still, not holding up a fractured nation on their shoulders. If fate had been crueler, they would lie beneath the earth instead of having their hands bound gently together. 

“We don’t have to do this,” He assured her, late at night in a bed they shouldn’t yet be sharing. But rules were made to be broken. 

“I chose it,” she kissed him, her leg thrown over his. “Every time, I choose this. You.” 

He didn’t remember meeting her. All his concentration had been narrowed first on Erebor and then on his sweating, shaking mess of a brother. She claimed to remember it though, 

“I thought you were much like the others. Foreign, strange and too rough,” she admitted. “But then you held your brother like he was precious and I thought maybe you weren’t so different from me.” 

It wasn’t a romantic beginning. He fought orcs off of her, in a fury because she was there and hurt and scared and because he knew how to make weapons of whatever was at hand. They were both frightened and worn thin. When the house shook and shook again, they were thrown against each other, but there was hardly time for sparks to fly when it seemed all the world would crumble. 

No, it all came days later. When the dead were not yet counted, but the battle had been won. He’d taken a bad wound and found himself piled up next to his brother in a bed made for longer limbs. 

“We’re a pair,” Kili laughed, exhausted and bitter. “The heirs of Durin.” 

“At least there’s heirs at all,” Fili ached. He couldn’t sleep, but to see Thorin too pale and unblinking. 

In the long endless midnight, she came to sit beside him in dress stained with other people's blood. 

“When our mother died, I hated the way everything carried on without her,” she told him. He learned her name, Sigrid only moments before. Repeated it until she approved of it in his mouth. “As if nothing had changed.” 

“Thorin taught me everything I know,” he held her hand and his fingers were stubby and dirty, but hers were hardly pale perfection. They had both earned their nicks and callouses, the sandpaper skin of hard work. 

“My father was the greatest man I’d ever known,” her tears were silent, hot things that fell on their joined hands. He didn’t weep, but his eyes were red as if she did the work of grieving for both of them.   
Each night, she picked her way to his side. They talked about a thousand small things and of the few, large things that kept them both from sleeping. 

“I should like to kiss you,” he told her when there was a lull. “I don’t know if that’s rude or not.” 

“Why?” She blinked, owlishly. 

“Because I think you’re amazingly strong and beautiful,” he said as though it were obvious because to him it was. “I’d like to kiss you before someone else realizes that you will soon be strong, beautiful and the Queen of Dale.” 

“What would happen if they realized that?” 

“They’ll woo you with words I don’t have and certainly some inches I’ll never gain.” 

“But they won’t be you,” she leaned down and kissed him soft as dew on a morning rose. “my King Under the Mountain.” 

There was no dramatic denouement as their romance left the sickbed and traveled with him into health. There were no shouted battles waged between races over too many cups of elvish wine. That was Kili’s lot and he took to it well, all drama and flashing eyes while Tauriel sailed serenely behind him. 

Instead, Fili made Sigrid’s brother and sister strong swords and sat quietly with them in a fiery sunset to ask, 

“I would have your sister as my wife, if it would please you.” 

“What would father have said?” Bain asked uselessly, turning to Tilda. 

“I don’t know,” her hands rested uneasily on the keen weapon. “He would have wanted her happy.” 

“She’ll be a Queen,” Fili looked out over the clapboard town. “Her days will be long and her hardships many.” 

“She’ll be Queen no matter who she marries. As you’ll be King,” Bain shifted restlessly. “Won’t your people care?” 

“My people are broken and diminished. My brother consorts with elves and my godfather with a hobbit, male one at that. A marriage between royal families is practically normal in comparison,” he shrugged. “Anyone who likes it is free to leave Erebor and not suffer under our reign.” 

“And miss out on a share of treasure,” Bain smiled. “You would risk a lot for my sister, dwarf king.” 

“I would. Her regard is worth more than gold to me.” 

“You have my blessing then,” Bain clapped him on the shoulder. 

It was not quite as easy as that, of course, but the wrinkles worked themselves out, most too tired to fight too bitterly. The lines of Durin and Dain would melt together as it should be, one kingdom undivided in the shadow of Erebor. Treaties were written and signed by the bedraggled remains of both sides. Wax stamps sealed shut Fili’s future and a hurried ceremony laid a circle of gold on his head. 

If he had inherited his kingship in the normal fashion, the lead up to his wedding would have seen them sequestered a hundred miles apart. They might not even know the other’s name or have seen their face. Fili thought about that and refused to feel lucky. Instead, he enjoyed the few perks of their bloody past and slipped away each night from the mountain into the home she refused to leave. 

“I’ll be weighted down in splendor soon enough,” she set aside her scepter, leaning it against the rickety bedside table to draw him down beside her. 

Neither of them had had other lovers and their first few fumbles ended badly. They were patient though and bold with each other in the dark. Now they eased together like the crossing of two rivers and made a world beneath her rough sheets. He kissed the hard ridge of bone between her breasts. 

A proper dwarf woman, the perfect beauty to be a king’s bride, would be hard under her skin and kept warm by her own furs. A proper dwarf woman would sing over her husband’s drowsing head, weaving blessings and hopes for their children yet unborn. A proper dwarf woman would best other suitors in battle and make her wedding clothes from hide she’d hunted herself. 

Sigrid sewed her own silks, using the remains of her mother’s only good dress. She could hold a sword if required, but she preferred the needle to the blade. Though she’d soon have servants, she still cooked dinner for her brother and sister. She saved a little of the best dishes and brought them to Fili when the moon started to sidle away. 

“That’s how my mother wooed my father,” she broke a bit of bread and spread it with fresh butter. “She would bring him this and that. It was unusual. Usually the men do the pursuing with us, but mother knew what she wanted.” 

“My mother killed a dozen orcs with an axe she forged herself. My father said he fell in love with her when she was still dripping in orc blood,” he took the bread from her with a shy smile, because they were very young and still knew how to be shy. “I prefer this.” 

Before dawn, Fili would kiss her and slip away again. Back up the slopes of the mountain, returning exhausted to don his robes. Often Kili would be waiting, sitting in Fili’s room with a filthy wink and hot bath drawn. 

“She’ll be yours within the month, brother,” Kili teased. “Surely you can keep your hands to yourself until then?” 

“And where have you been that your hair is all in snarls?” He tweaked on of Kili’s long locks.

“My sins don’t excuse yours,” was the merry rejoinder as Fili took to the bath. 

“Mother will be here for your wedding,” Kili sobered all at once, a letter appearing in his hands. 

“She’ll have many words for the both of us, I’m sure.” 

They greeted her together, in private, but her words were as soft as her embraces were hard. She cried, the first tears of hers they had ever seen, and inspected their scars between her heaving breath. 

“My boys,” she held them together. “How close I came to losing you both.” 

They took her to Thorin’s tomb and she struck her blade against the top three times. Three times for a brother and then a fourth for a king. She visited with their ancestors, recounting long faded stories to match their dusty graves. Fili would lie there one day, housed in some stone artifice. The thought would once have pleased him, but he’d seen too much death now. He waited by the door for her to make her respects. 

Fili wasn’t there when Dis met Tauriel though he heard the embellished stories of a feast that ended in a near riot. He arranged for something quieter, a queen meeting a queen mother in antechamber long unused. 

“Your son is dear to me,” Sigrid said when all the niceties were done. “I know I’m not what you might have wanted, but I promise you that I will care for him.” 

“You already have. For here he stands, hale and hearty with your nursing and unbent by sorrow that might otherwise cripple him,” Dis studied her. “That elven woman, we are too alike, she and I. Too much fire in our guts. She’ll make my reckless lad worse, stirring him up and spurring him on. But you...you carry steadiness with you like my Fili. Like my husband, may he rest with Mahal. You will hold each other up and be parents to your nation.” 

They cleaved to one another in not long after. He in fur and she in silk. Their people cheered and they smiled broadly, let their joy temporarily sweep away memories of recent pains. Everyone feasted on boar and deer, but their plants were empty. 

“I made a wedding soup,” she leaned down, let him plait her hair into a married woman’s braids. “To eat before we first go to bed. It’s traditional to have that alone in our bellies.”

“I don’t think I could eat anyway,” he kissed her behind the veil of her hair, ignoring the catcalls of the company. 

In portraits, they always looked subtly mismatched for all their complexions were much the same. She stood tall despite their differences in height, always posed with one hand on his shoulder. He never lost the edge of a warrior, too tense about the eyes and sturdy as a barrel. They ruled far better than they stood for portraits and the only thing that suffered in their reign were the great treasure hoards of Erebor, meted out to heal their broken kingdom. But their wealth was vast and could stand a little punishment. 

She bore him a single son and they named him Thard and would hear nothing of how it offended everyone and pleased no one. In this, as in so few things, they worked only to make each other happy. 

Fili couldn't remember meeting her, but when Sigrid died at barely eighty, he could recall every other moment they spent together.


End file.
